Studies in Greek Scenery, Legend and History / Selected from His Commentary on Pausanias' 'Description of Greece,'

by James George Frazer

So completely is the lake fenced in by mountains on all sides that no stream can issue from it above ground, and the water escapes only by two subterranean emissaries or Katavothras, as they are called by the Greeks, at the south-eastern and south-western ends of the lake. Through the latter emissary the water passes under the mountain, and issuing on the other side, about six miles from the lake and eight hundred feet below its level, forms the source of the Ladon. On the state of these emissaries it depends whether the great mountain-basin of Pheneus is a fertile plain or a broad lake. From antiquity down to the present century the periods in which the basin has been completely drained have alternated with periods in which it has been occupied by a lake. In the time of Theophrastus (the fourth century B.C.) the bottom of the valley seems to have been generally dry land, for he mentions that once, when the emissaries had got choked up, the water rose and flooded the plain, drowning the willows, firs, and pines, which, however, reappeared the following year when the flood subsided. In the following century part of the valley at least would seem to have been a lake, for the geographer Eratosthenes, quoted by Strabo, informs us that the river Anias formed in front of the city of Pheneus a lake which was drained by subterranean passages, and that when these passages were closed the water rose over the plain, but that when they were opened again it was discharged into the Ladon and hence into the Alpheus in such volume that the sacred precinct at Olympia was flooded, while the lake on the other hand shrank. Strabo himself mentions that the flow of the Ladon was once checked by the obstruction of the emissaries consequent upon an earthquake. According to Pliny there had been down to his time five changes in the condition of the valley from wet to dry and from dry to wet, all of them caused by earthquakes. In Plutarch’s age the flood rose so high that the whole valley was under water, which pious people attributed to Apollo’s anger at Hercules, who was said to have stolen the prophetic tripod at Delphi and carried it off to Pheneus about a thousand years before. However, later on in the same century the waters had again subsided, for Pausanias found the bottom of the valley to be dry land, and knew of the former existence of the lake only from tradition.

From the days of Pausanias down to the beginning of the nineteenth century we have no record of the condition of the valley. In 1806, when Leake and Dodwell visited it, the great valley was still a swampy plain, covered with fields of wheat or barley except at the south-western end, where round the entrance to the emissary the water formed a small lake which never dried up even in summer. But in 1821, doubtless through the obstruction of the emissaries, the water began to rise over the plain, and by 1829-1830, when the French surveyors mapped the district, the whole basin was occupied by a deep lake five miles long by five miles wide. On January 1, 1834, the emissaries suddenly opened again, the Ladon became a deep and raging torrent, the valley was drained, and fresh vegetation sprang up on the rich slimy soil. But when Welcker visited Pheneus in 1842 the valley was once more occupied by a lake, and had been so, if he was correctly informed, since 1838 at least. And a lake it would seem to have been ever since. In 1853 the Swiss scholar Vischer found a great lake, exactly as the French surveyors had represented it on their map; the hill on the north-west side of the valley, on which are the scanty remains of the ancient acropolis, projected like a peninsula into the lake, and the site of the ancient city was deep under water. W. G. Clark in 1856 describes with enthusiasm the “wide expanse of still water deep among the hills, reflecting black pine-woods and grey crags and sky now crimson with sunset”; according to him the lake was seven miles long and as many wide. In June 1888 Mr. Philippson found a broad clear lake of deep green colour; and in the autumn of 1895 I viewed with pleasure the same beautiful scene, though I would describe the colour of the water as greenish-blue rather than green. The lake has shrunk, however, a good deal since the middle of the century. A long stretch of level plain, covered with vineyards and maize-fields, now divides the ancient acropolis of Pheneus from the margin of the lake.

LX. From Pheneus To Nonacris.—The route from Pheneus to the Styx, at least so far as the modern village of Zarouchla, is one of the most beautiful in all Greece. The grandeur of the mountains, the richness of the vegetation, the fragrance and charm of the pine-forests, the distant views of the blue lake of Pheneus, all contribute to render the impression which the day’s journey leaves on the memory one of the most agreeable that the traveller brings back with him from Greece.

From the lower village of Phonia we ascend through the luxuriant gardens and lanes of the village to the ridge which bounds the plain of Pheneus on the north-west. On reaching it, a grand view westward of the mighty Mount Chelmos (the ancient Aroanius), with its bare summit and pine-clad lower slopes, bursts upon us. The mountain is seen rising above a deep basin-like valley, the bottom and sides of which are clothed with the richest vegetation. High up on the slope of the mountain to the north-west (Mount Crathis), among trees, is the delightfully-situated monastery of St. George. Our path leads down into the valley; on the slope grow white poplars and cypresses, and the ground is partly carpeted with ferns. From the bottom of the valley, which is chiefly occupied by a charming grove of plane-trees, we ascend through fine woods, mostly of oak, to the monastery of St. George. Still ascending after we have passed the monastery, we plunge again into a maze of beautiful woods and dense tangled thickets, threaded by rills of sparkling water. Vegetation of such rank luxuriance is rarely met with in Greece. On emerging from these delightful woodlands we traverse, always ascending, a stretch of bare bushy slopes which intervenes between the verdant glades below and the sombre pine-forests higher up. When these slopes are passed, we enter the pine-forest, through which our way now goes for several hours.

Few things can be more delightful than this ride through the pine-woods. It was a bright October day when I passed through them on my way to Solos; in many places the forest was carpeted with ferns, now turned yellow, and between the tree-trunks we could see across the valley the great slopes of Mount Cyllene, of a glowing purple in the intense sunlight. From time to time, too, we had views backward over the blue waters of the lake of Pheneus embosomed in its dark pine-clad mountains. Added to all this were the delicious odour of the pines and the freshness and exhilaration of the air at a height of about six thousand feet. But the culmination of beauty, so far as distant views go, is reached on the summit of the ridge, before we begin to descend the northern slope towards Zarouchla. On the one side, toward the south-east, we look back to the lake of Pheneus and the great mountains which encircle it, Mount Cyllene above all. On the other side, toward the north-west, we gaze down into the long narrow valley of the river Crathis, hemmed in on either hand by high mountains, above which soars the bare sharp peak of Mount Chelmos on the south, while at the farther end of the valley the view is closed by the blue Acarnanian mountains across the Gulf of Corinth.

From the ridge we now descend through the forest by a steep, winding, stony path, till we reach the bed of a stream flowing among romantic rocks and woods to join or rather to form, with other streams, the Crathis. In the bottom of the valley the richness of the vegetation even increases. We rode through thickets of planes, growing as great bushes or small trees, so dense that we had constantly to stoop to the horses’ necks to prevent our faces from being brushed by the branches. Other trees and plants, of which I did not know the names, grew in profusion around us. And above all this Eden-like verdure of woods and lanes and thickets shot up the huge sharp peaks of Chelmos and its sister mountains, blue and purple in the sunlight. In this paradise lies the village of Zarouchla. Beyond it the path follows the valley of the Crathis, keeping for the most part on the right bank of the stream. The valley is very narrow, and is enclosed by immense steep mountains, the sides of which, wherever it is practicable, are terraced for vines or other cultivation. The Crathis, when I saw it, was a clear rushing stream, easily fordable at any point. At first the path runs in the bottom of the valley through tangled thickets. Here and there, where the dale is wide enough to admit of it, a patch of maize is grown. But soon, as we proceed, the valley contracts too much to allow even of this, and so the path, often rough and difficult for horses, ascends and leads along the barer mountain-side at some height above the stream.

Thus advancing we at last arrive opposite to the mouth of the deep glen down which the Styx comes to join the Crathis on its western bank. Here we cross the Crathis and strike up the glen of the Styx. The scenery of the profound and narrow glen is almost oppressively grand. The mountains are immense and exceedingly massive; above they are bare and rocky; but their lower slopes are terraced so as to resemble gigantic staircases, and on the terraces are perched several very picturesque villages, the houses scattered at different levels and embowered among trees. At the upper end of the glen soars the mighty cone of Mount Chelmos. The grandeur of the scenery, which would otherwise be almost awful, is softened by the wonderful luxuriance of the vegetation in the glen. The horse-chestnut trees especially, with their enormous gnarled and knotted trunks, are a sight to see. The nightingales are said to be very common here and to sing from February to June. A long laborious ascent by a winding path brings us to the prosperous village of Solos on the eastern side of the glen. The villages on the opposite side of the glen, dispersed over the terraced slopes, form, with Solos, almost a single settlement. One of them probably occupies the site of the ancient Nonacris.

LXI. The Fall of the Styx.—The village of Solos stands, as we have seen, on the right bank of the Styx, near where that stream falls into the Crathis. But the source of the stream is at the head of the glen, some miles to the south, where the water tumbles or trickles, according to the season, over the smooth face of an immense perpendicular cliff, the top of which is not far below the conical summit of Mount Chelmos, a mountain nearly eight thousand feet high. The walk from Solos to the foot of the fall and back is exceedingly fatiguing, and very few travellers accomplish it; most of them are content to view the fall from a convenient distance through a telescope. For the first two miles or so the path is practicable for horses, and travellers who are resolved to make their way to the waterfall will do well to ride thus far and to have the horses waiting for them here on their return. It is also necessary to take a guide or guides. The path winds up the glen, keeping at first high on the right bank. The bed of the stream is here prettily wooded with poplars and other trees and is spanned by a bridge with a single high arch. For a considerable distance above the village the water of the Styx, as seen from above, appears to be of a clear light-blue colour, with a tinge of green. This colour, however, is only apparent, and is due to the slaty rocks, of a pale greenish-blue colour, among which the river flows. In reality the water is quite clear and colourless.

In about twenty minutes from leaving the village we come in sight of the cliff over which the water of the Styx descends. It is an immense cliff, absolutely perpendicular, a little to the left or east of the high conical summit of Mount Chelmos. The whole of this northern face of the mountain is in fact nothing but a sheer and in places even overhanging precipice of grey rock—by far the most awful line of precipices I have ever seen. The cliffs of Delphi, grand and imposing as they are, sink into insignificance compared with the prodigious wall of rock in which Mount Chelmos descends on the north into the glen of the Styx. The cliff down which the water comes is merely the eastern and lower end of this huge wall of rock. Seen from a distance it appears to be streaked perpendicularly with black and red. The black streak marks the line of the waterfall, to which it has given the modern name of Mavro-nero, ‘the Black Water.’ The colour is produced by a dark incrustation which spreads over the smooth face of the rock wherever it is washed by the falling water or by the spray into which the water dissolves before it reaches the ground. In the crevices of the cliffs to the right and left of the fall great patches of snow remain all the year through. I saw them and passed close to the largest of them on a warm autumn day, after the heat of summer and before the first snow of winter.

About twenty-five minutes after leaving Solos we cross the Styx by a ford, and henceforward the route lies on the left or western bank of the stream. Five minutes from the ford bring us to a mill picturesquely situated among trees, where a brook comes purling down a little glen wooded with willows and plane-trees. Just above the mill the Styx tumbles over a fine rocky lyn in a roaring cascade. Beyond this point the steep slopes of the hills on the opposite bank of the stream are covered with ferns, which when I rode up the glen were tinged with the gold of autumn. In front of us looms nearer and larger the cone of Mount Chelmos with its long line of precipices.